Agricultural product delivery systems are known to utilize various mechanisms, including mechanical and pneumatic systems, i.e., a flow of air, to assist in the delivery and movement of particulate material or product such as fertilizer, seed, insecticide or herbicide from a product supply chamber through an interior passage provided by a series of elongate tubes which extend from the product supply chamber to a product applicator that places the product on or in growing medium, such as soil. Such agricultural product delivery systems are commonly employed in planters, air drills, fertilizer and pesticide applicators and a variety of other agricultural implements.
Agricultural implements that employ an agricultural product delivery system are known to have a particulate material supply source such as one or more tanks that are loaded with the particulate material or materials to be applied. The tanks have or are associated with a metering device, which typically consists of a rotating element, which meters the particulate materials from the tanks into a set of distribution channels, such as conduits, hoses, etc., for application to the farm field. In most systems, a pneumatic source such as a fan or blower provides air to convey and distribute material through the distribution channels. Once the metering of particulates is done and the mix of air and particulates is in the distribution channels, the solid concentration should remain nearly constant and in dilute phase.
Systems as described have provided certain advantages and have worked acceptably in some aspects, but are not without disadvantages, inefficiencies or inconveniences. For example, it often occurs in the material supply source, such as a tank, that the material to be distributed via the system becomes agglomerated within the tank, such as by forming bridges across the tank, that prevent the material from being distributed.
In order to alleviate the problems associated with the agglomeration of the material within the tank, many types of mechanical agitators have been developed. These agitator are positioned within the tank and can be operated to agitate the material and break up any agglomeration or bridges of the material that have formed within the tank. However, as the placement of the mechanical agitators within the tank limits their ability to agitate material that is not immediately adjacent the agitator, in certain situations all agglomerations and bridges cannot be broken up effectively, or to distribute material that has an uneven horizontal profile due to previous sectional control.
Further, when the material within the tank drops below a certain level, it is often difficult to move the remaining material within the tank into a position where the material can exit the tank, which requires that the tank be manually cleaned and/or emptied at the end of a run. The mechanical agitators are unable to assist with this task as the remaining material rest outside of the operational volume that can be affected by the agitators, and may hinder the process by obstructing areas where the remaining material is positioned within the tank.
What is needed in the art is an agricultural product including an agitation system for the tanks of the application that addresses these issues to improve efficiency and convenience of the applicator without further complicating its construction, such as the mechanical drives of and associated physical interference of prior art rotary agitators.